Froma Zeitlin

Froma I. Zeitlin
Born	(1933-09-05) 5 September 1933 New York City, USA
Awards	Howard T. Berhman Award for Distinguished Achievement in the Humanities Guggenheim Fellowship, 1984
Academic background
Alma mater	Radcliffe College (BA) The Catholic University of America (MA) Columbia University
Thesis	(1970)
Academic work
Discipline	Classics
Sub-discipline	Greek Literature
Institutions	Rutgers University Princeton University

Froma I. Zeitlin is an American Classics scholar. She specializes in ancient Greek literature, with particular interests in epic, drama and prose fiction, along with work in gender criticism, and the relationship between art and text in the context of the visual culture of antiquity. Zeitlin's work on establishing new approaches to Greek tragedy has been considered particularly influential.

Career

Froma Zeitlin studied at Radcliffe College (B.A. 1954) and at the Catholic University of America (M.A. 1965). She was awarded her PhD by Columbia University (1970). From 1970–76 she was an assistant professor at Rutgers University, and an associate professor from 1976–77.

Zeitlin joined the faculty of Princeton University in 1976, where she became Professor of Classics in 1983, and of Comparative Literature in 1989. From 1992 Zeitlin was the Charles Ewing Professor of Greek Language and Literature. In 1996 Zeitlin founded the Judaic Studies program at Princeton, and directed it until 2005. In 1995/6 she was the Sather Professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Among other honors, she has been Directeur d’Études Associé at both the Collège de France and the École Pratique des Hautes Études; she is an honorary fellow of Newnham College, and in 2001 was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Influence

Froma Zeitlin was one of the first Classicists to apply methods from Structuralism, Semiotics and Gender Studies to Ancient Literature, and has been considered particularly influential for her role in creating links between European theorists (such as Jean-Pierre Vernant) and the field of Classics in America. She has written numerous essays and monographs dealing with overarching cultural themes, many of which have influenced the creation of significant new approaches or debates.

Personal life

Zeitlin is the mother of the economic historian Jonathan Zeitlin and the scholar of Chinese literature Judith Zeitlin.

Selected works

Single-authored books

• The Ritual World of Greek Tragedy. Ann Arbor 1973
• Under the Sign of the Shield: Semiotics and Aeschylus’ Seven against Thebes. Lanham 1982. 2nd Ed, Lanham 2009. ISBN 9780739125892
• Playing the Other. Gender and Society in Classical Greek Literature. Chicago 1996. ISBN 0-22697922-9

Co-edited volumes

• Nothing to do with Dionysos? Athenian Drama in Its Social Context. Princeton 1990. ISBN 0-691-06814-3
• Jean-Pierre Vernant: Mortals and Immortals. Collected Essays. Princeton 1991. ISBN 0-691-06831-3
• Before Sexuality: The Construction of Erotic Experience in the Ancient Greek World. Princeton 1991. ISBN 9780691002217

External links

• Froma I. Zeitlin, Curriculum Vitae (PDF)
• Froma Zeitlin at Princeton University
• Photos of Froma Zeitlin
• A Brief History of the Sather Professorship